Our teacher didn’t start a family early ’cos he was dedicated to his job - Mrs Ayodele Mojirade Ayorinde, former Principal, Methodist Girls’ High School Yaba/Oba Akinbiyi High School, Ibadan

By Biodun Odunuga-Samuel: updated Sunday 21-06-2009

BORN in Aawe, Oyo Province, Western Region, Nigeria, she will be 61 next week, June 29. She started her career as a File Clerk (Administrative Clerk) at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, immediately after secondary education.

After graduation from the University of Ibadan, she became a Contract Education Officer in Northern Zaria. She was Principal in a number of secondary schools before she retired in 1997 and thereafter, moved to the United Kingdom where her wealth of experience contributed to the growth of Light House Bible School in Manchester, a school belonging to the Deeper Life Bible Church. She was there for about five years before she joined the Prisons Service in Manchester. Now one of the first contacts for first - time prisoners in Manchester, United Kingdom, Mrs. Ayodele Ayorinde tries to remember her growing up years:

Then
“My father worked with the Federal Government Press and when he was transferred to the Eastern Region, mother had to go with him, while I was taken along. I was then a little child and my younger brother was born in Enugu. At that time, my mother had to fall back on the business skills she learnt from her mother. She empowered herself by making soap, knitting wools and doing other petty trading. I learnt all these things from my mother and now I can knit I can make bar-soap, and other things. They are also useful to me where I am now, in Manchester and in the present job I do. Even my brother could do these things because we were both taught how to knit, how to do embroidery, sew cloth, make flowers and so on. Fortunately, all these skills were reinforced in the secondary school, Queen’s School, Ede.

“ We were still very young when we left Enugu in 1954 to be back in Ibadan, with father. Later, mother started her food restaurant again and we were very much involved because, after school, or at the weekend, we usually went to help her in the shop. If we failed to help we were locked out. That taught me to be self - reliant, which was the major thing I gained from my mum. My mother made us to understand that anywhere we found ourselves we must be able to adapt. She started as a sewingmistress, went to Enugu and ended up being a businesswoman.”

Motivation
“My mum was a role model that shaped my life. Though, she was not educated, her watchword to encourage me was: ‘If you make me proud academically I am prepared to give you all you want in life.’ I remember that I was the only one from the Ebenezer African Church Primary School, Ekotedo, Ibadan, that got admission into Queen’s School, Ede. She felt so happy about it and I remember a lot of us went for the entrance examination, then it was like a national common entrance. Two of us were invited for the interview but eventually, I was the only one given admission from our school. That was the 1960 set of Ebenezer Primary School, Ekotedo. I started Queen’s School in January 1961, and not only that, as my letter of admission came I got a scholarship.

“When my father lost his job at the Cooperative Supply Association and my mother had to stand in the gap, that taught me that whatever happens, I have to be there for my better half. Though, I was very young then, I took that very seriously. But the thing that struck me most about my mum was that she kept to her word that if I did her proud academically she would give me the best, and what did she do that year? She took the list of the requirements sent to us from Queen’s School, took me to.

A.G. Leventis, then a departmental store at Dugbe, Ibadan, and she bought everything on the list and lots more, which was then a great thing because only the elite shop at Leventis. That, to me, was like an open cheque and I was really amazed. That was how my mum kept on encouraging me. She had a lot of inspirational anecdotes for me. She would say: “Look Ayo, if you do very well I can wear this one dress till kingdom come but you, Ayo, will dress like children of prime ministers. I will take you to wherever you want to reach,” and she did. I must say I only worked hard in school to make my mother happy, because I could not afford to disappoint her, she was really the inspiration.

I felt if she was working so hard to make me happy I owed her a duty to make her happy too. By and large, I did my school certificate exam at Queen’s School and I came out in flying colours. I went back to the school for my HSC and I think, if I am not wrong, Professor Ogunseyinde, at UCH, and myself had the best results. She had the best result in science while I had the best result in social sciences for our A’Levels and from there we went to the University of Ibadan. My mum was also there for me. Infact one of those things she always told me was that if I could pass my A’Levels very well, she would take a chunk of money and take me to Gbagi Market; that all I needed to do was just to point at any item and she was ready to pay the price. She did. She kept her words.

Anytime she promised me something and I was able to meet up her expectations, she gave me a reward. All these guided me, even in raising my children. I saw that I owed them a duty to give them a good education and to always be there for them.

“I owed them a duty to deny myself of everyday mundane things for the joy of establishing them because as time went on, when I grew up and got married, myself and my mother became so close, we were like sisters. If I saw something good, I bought for her and if she saw something she felt I would like, she bought for me.We were friends. All my friends knew the only soft spot I had was my mum. Her death robbed me of a very dear friend. The only close friends I have now are Professor Ogunseyinde and Dr. Lasaki.”

Ayodele Ayorinde at sixFirst day in school
“I went to three different primary schools. I started my primary education in the East, at the Salvation Army Primary School, Enugu. Then I went to St. Joseph’s Primary School, Elegbaata in Lagos and that was for a brief moment because it was a Catholic primary school and we were Baptist. I was moved to Baptist Primary School, Isale Eko, Lagos, but the primary school that really shaped my life was Ebenezer African Church Primary School, Ekotedo, Ibadan. It was a public school, part of the Obafemi Awolowo free education programme, and the school was fantastic because of the dedication and devotion of the teachers, particularly Mr. J.A Ogunwunmi. He is of blessed memory now, but before he died he reaped the fruits of raising the likes of us. Quite a lot of us who passed through his tutelage became doctors, administrators - we had people who became permanent secretaries, education directors, and so on.

All of us that he handled in that 1960 set of primary six turned out to be great, he was so dedicated. His pride and joy was to see us succeed up to the point that our parents had to show their appreciation for his dedication. He didn’t start a family early because he got carried away by his devotion to the job. I thank God that we were able to show our appreciation because when we stumbled into him in the latter days of his life he was poor in health; each one of us came round to assist in making him happy. We even took up the challenge of his children because they were very young when he passed on. Mr. Ogunwunmi inspired me to be a teacher; I identified my love for Geography right from primary school and he was also a role model in that.”

Secondary school
“It was an experience I can never forget. We had to spend a whole week in Queen’s School for the interview and because I came from a humble background, I wasn’t privileged to be taken in a car. My father took me to the Railway Station at Dugbe and put me on the train, that was how I went all alone. I had never been on the train before and that was my first train journey. From Ibadan to Ede, I remember vividly that the train fare was one shilling, five pence and that was big money. Our parents had much confidence in us and crime rate was very low then. You can imagine me getting to Ede, a small town, by myself. When we came off the train, I trekked to Queen’s with some other girls, carrying my box on my head. It was fun, we were excited even though we did not know what we would meet at the interview. It was a well set out school and it was home away from home. All the teachers were dedicated like the ones in my primary school and I was able to identify with the way they talked, taught and gave instructions.

“In the school, we experienced having to wake up in the morning without anybody waking us, only to wake up to the gingle of a bell; and the interview lasted for a week. We made new friends. I remember I bought some yam tubers for my mum on my way back. Luckily, I got admission, which, to the glory of God, had really shaped my life. The education we acquired in Queen’s School was very robust; we were taught academic value and social skills - how to live a clean life, how to handle domestic chores, how to make polish, and so on.“

When father had to beat me
“My mother was very strict so we knew our boundary with her. My father was an easy going man so he spanked me just once, that I could remember. I was close to my father and mother, but in different perspectives. With my father, I had the privilege of being sat down to learn about politics and current affairs. He would tell me about the then Action Group (AG), the NCNC and other political parties of those days. Right from age nine, I was already a member of the Junior Times (paper) Readers’ Club. So I read the ‘Daily Times’ and I am still an avid reader of newspapers; my day is not complete without reading the daily newspapers. I try to keep abreast of happenings in politics. Because of this, despite the fact that I am not in Nigeria, I am still knowledgable of political happenings in Nigeria. However, the only time my father had to smack me was when my mum was hospitalised. Father tried to prevent us from getting worried so, he didn’t allow us to visit her but that day, some of our family friends were going to visit my mother and I jumped in their car. When daddy came back from the hospital, we were already gone and he was worried when he did not see me.

When we came back, I was glad about visiting my mum and was jumping about when father just moved closer and beat me with the flat side of a wooden brush. He said I went without his permission, and that was the only time I was beaten by my dad. But for my mum, it was the order of the day to get beaten. Mum also had a way of letting us know what to expect. If she called me by my full name, ‘Ayodele,’ I knew there was trouble; if she just said, ‘Ayo,’ all was well; if she called me ‘Moji,’ then it meant I had done very well. My middle name is Mojirade So, if mum said, ‘Moji,’ I could jump and stroll in because there were goodies awaiting me. My mother was not an academician or a Ph.D holder but she had some psychological values and principles which she used to shape our lives; you could tell what to expect from the tone of her voice, by her countenance, or by contact with her eyes. I imbibed these things from her and discovered that they were better ways of training a child than constant beating.”

Nigerians in UK prisons
“There is a misconception that many Africans languish in UK prisons but I can tell you that we don’t have so many Africans in prison in the U.K. We do have a handful of them who are in jail because they ran foul of the law and they are more in London area. Some committed fraud but in most cases, Africans who are imprisoned are those who, out of ignorance, think that without the proper documentation they can go to a foreign land and work. In the past, all they did was to deport but they found that it was not deterring people, so what they do now is to give them a prison sentence that will give them a criminal record and then they are deported. People who travel to foreign lands without going through the proper channel run the risk of being criminalised, while, in actual fact, they were just caught working when they should not have worked; or when they come with fake passports that say they could work, only to find out that it wasn’t true.”